Militant moderate, unwilling to concede any longer the terms of debate to the strident ideologues on the fringe. If you are a Democrat or a Republican, you're an ideologue. If you're a "moderate" who votes a nearly straight party-ticket, you're still an ideologue, but you at least have the decency to be ashamed of your ideology. ...and you're lying in the meantime.

Saturday, April 07, 2012

Bearing False Atheism

I have nothing against people who don’t believe in God. I don’t care why they don’t. They’ve often got a good point. It’s “illogical”? Yes, it is. It’s a non-falsifiable construct – it cannot be proven. Similarly it can also not be disproven, either. It’s non-falsifiable, remember?

It’s only when the atheist is an ideological peabrain that I get involved, for the ideological atheist declares that not being provable is the same as being disproven. It doesn’t work that way; they are taking their good point way too far. Non-falsifiable means that it can neither be proven nor disproven. Smugly announcing “non-falsifiable construct!!” doesn’t do a thing except admit to participating in a useless discussion in which nothing can be accomplished.

But, yes, God is illogical. Just like love, beauty and wisdom are. Leave it there. Many people are happy being illogically religious just as others are happy being illogically in love with an illogically beautiful woman. Illogical wisdom would suggest that you shut up about it, for yammering to a known – and unchanging – conclusionless conclusion is illogical.

Another good point often brought up about religion is that it has a nasty habit of being used as a cudgel with which a government beats its own citizens ... and others’. And that is indeed [sometimes] the case. But not nearly so often as atheists claim, and to nowhere near the extremes they assert. While there are, in fact, “religious wars” most of the wars they claim are “religious” are instead plain old political wars with a religious difference being a coincidental non-factor.

The Spanish-American War, for example, is often cited as religious. Catholic Spain versus the [largely] Protestant US. The war was not about theological disputes, however; it was about who controlled territory in the Caribbean and Far East.

Then there are the wars that have been simmering for centuries around which religious difference have grown. Northern Ireland is the perfect example of this. Catholic England invaded and conquered a portion of Catholic Ireland ... because England wanted it for themselves. They’ve been at war ever since. A few generations after invading, Henry got into a pissing contest with the Pope, declared himself no longer Catholic and ... the war in Northern Ireland is now for religious reasons? No; it’s still because England wants it for themselves.

Atheists love to claim that “religion causes more wars” than anything else. This would be true, except that it isn’t. Well, hey, it was fifty-fifty ... they just guessed wrong. Then they like to claim that “religion has inspired more killing” than anything else. Again ... fifty-fifty, they come up wrong. In all actuality, it has been the state-imposed lack of religion during the Communist era of the 20th century that has caused more deaths than anything else. Religion can’t hold a candle to atheism on the death-and-misery scale.

In the United States, however, atheists have refined their atheism to be God-specific. In the US, it is not merely religion which has caused more wars than any other reason, it is Christianity. Which is patently false. Most of the wars fought by Christians have been for non-religious reasons – including the Crusades, by the way – and most of those have been fought against nations or kingdoms of the same religion as them. The wars Christians have fought against other religions and for religious reasons were confined to the Catholic war against England for Henry pissing on the Pope, a handful of French wars against its own heretical splitters, Spain’s Inquisition against the Jews [using the tricks played upon the Spaniards by the Muslim Moors], and possibly one of the English civil wars. Beyond that ...? Nope.

The Crusades? The Byzantine Empire was the defender of Europe from Asian invaders, and had just ceded the lion’s share of its territory to the Turks – who had eyes on Europe, judging by their attacks around the Byzantine flank [not to mention 800 years of subsequent occupation]. Europe responded with their own flanking maneuver. Religion was simply a means of eliciting popular support.

The Conquistadores? The Spanish discovered the New World, and they wanted it for themselves. Religion had bupkus to do with it – unless gold was their God. Cortez gladly allied himself with ancestor worshipping, human sacrificing, ritually cannibalistic heathen to conquer the Aztecs.

Another dopey claim made by American atheists is that the only reason Christianity is so widespread is because of the wars they started for the purpose of spreading Christianity. Gibberish. Christianity spread in Europe to the boundaries of the then-stagnant Roman Empire once Christianity had supplanted Roman paganism. It spread into Europe beyond those borders only when post-Roman Christian provinces were conquered by pagans pursuing land and wealth; Christianity spread to cover Europe by losing wars it didn’t even start.

Once Europe was Christianized, the Christian nations spread to the New World because they wanted it; once they had it they spent virtually all their time fighting amongst themselves. When Christianity has come up against other religions and had wars of religious inspiration it was almost always – as with European pagans – because the other religion started it. And the other religion, when not paganism, has been Islam.

Islam is a religion that began on the point of a sword – Mohammed conquered Mecca because its city elders refused to accept his pious dictates upon the pagan idols in town; it has spread specifically because the religion requires it to be forcibly imposed upon infidels as well as upon other believers of “The Book” who refuse to submit to it ... otherwise known as infidels. War is a doctrinal necessity in Islam.

Yes, Islam spreads by war as its primary means. Atheism as well. Judaism, throughout its history, has spread mostly because no one else wanted it near them and they pushed it to the farthest reaches, and Christianity spreads by a combination of losing wars and by greedy coattails.

But you can’t convince American atheists of this. It’s like love, and beauty, and wisdom ... and religion to them. Nevertheless, they’re provably wrong. And they’re also provably hypocrites, which is delicious as their most common denunciation of religion is its institutional hypocrisy. Again, they have a point, but it’s not terribly convincing of anything worth proving.

How about these for hypocrisy:

1] School administrators fearful of atheist panty-wetting change the lyrics of “God Bless the USA” in a 4th-grade concert until too many parents protest and not one atheist shows up to quibble, but a Muslim hymn in a public school choral competition skips by unchallenged by anyone except one [Christian] student – who is called bigoted and unenlightened for saying “Hey, waydaminnit!”

2] Crosses marking historical and funerary sites across the nation are being sued into dust by various atheist groups as an unallowable “state-sponsored religion”, yet not one atheist whimper over the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act which lends official government sponsorship of the religious supremacy of Indian historical and burial sites.

3] The prayer which convenes Congressional sessions, the word ‘God’ on our currency and government buildings, the National Day of Prayer and the President’s traditional participation in the National Prayer Breakfast are routinely pouted about by our atheists, yet the Agriculture Department holds its second annual “Food and Justice Passover Seder”, at which the Ag Secretary quotes Leviticus – nary a peep.

American atheism: against all religions in equal terms, so long as it’s Christianity.